- Bessent, Trump urge ending the Senate filibuster
Source: United Press International
“President Donald Trump and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent urged an end to the Senate filibuster rule ahead of an anticipated budget battle in January. Bessent submitted an op-ed that The Washington Post published on Saturday and blames Senate Democrats and the filibuster for blocking passage of a resolution to keep the federal government open while negotiating the 2026 fiscal year budget and causing a record 43-day shutdown of the federal government. … Senate Democrats control 47 seats, including two occupied by independents who caucus with Senate Democrats, while the GOP controls 53 seats, so neither party can overcome the filibuster rule without help from the other.” (12/27/25)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/12/27/senate-filibuster/8511766875059/
- UK: Lloyds shuts invoice financing service as small businesses feel squeeze
Source: Financial Times [UK]
“Lloyds Banking Group is shutting an invoice financing service for small business customers as the UK’s biggest lenders pivot to focus on more lucrative corporate clients. The UK’s biggest high street bank will close its invoice factoring service by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter, in a blow to small enterprise customers operating on thin margins. The move to end the service, under which Lloyds buys unpaid invoices from small businesses in return for the right to receive the payments from their customers, follows similar closures by other top lenders. It comes as businesses confront rising costs after increases in the minimum wage and successive tax-raising budgets by chancellor Rachel Reeves.” (12/28/25)
- State of emergency declared in New York, New Jersey as US storm disrupts thousands of flights
Source: Sky News [UK]
“A powerful winter storm has disrupted one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in New York City and northeastern US. Around 4in of snow fell in New York City on Saturday, although many roads were cleared by Saturday morning. Still, the storm has caused significant disruptions to holiday travel, with at least 1,500 flights cancelled or delayed since Friday night, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware. … New York and New Jersey were put under states of emergency. … San Francisco and Orlando experienced travel delays, as snow began falling on Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport.” (12/28/25)
- Thai, Cambodian regimes sign new ceasefire deal to end weeks of border fighting
Source: CBC News [UK state media]
“Thailand and Cambodia on Saturday signed a ceasefire agreement to end weeks of armed combat along their border over competing claims to territory. It took effect at noon local time. In addition to ending fighting, the agreement calls for no further military movements and no violations of either side’s airspace for military purposes. Only Thailand had employed airstrikes in the fighting, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, according to Cambodia’s Defence Ministry.” (12/27/25)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/thailand-cambodia-border-clashes-ceasefire-agreement-9.7028492
- Paraguay: Key Bolsonaro ally arrested while trying to flee to El Salvador
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“A Brazilian former police chief, who fled the country after he was convicted as an accomplice in the attempted coup by Brazil’s far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in Paraguay, according to the country’s immigration agency. Silvinei Vasques was arrested on Friday at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, the Paraguayan National Migration Directorate (DNM) said in a statement posted on its website. The agency said Vasques was arrested for ‘identity theft’ after ‘attempting to evade immigration controls by impersonating a Paraguayan citizen.’ Vasques was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Panama, declaring El Salvador as his final destination, the DNM statement said.” (12/27/25)
- DC: FBI gang to abandon “J Edgar Hoover Building” lair
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“The FBI director, Kash Patel, said the law enforcement agency’s sprawling but ageing J Edgar Hoover building in Washington DC will be closed down and the agency will move into already existing offices elsewhere. … The brutalist J Edgar Hoover building was designed in the 1960s, when it was also conceived and constructed. It was often criticized for breaking with the style of other federal buildings. Former FBI head Hoover himself once called it ‘the greatest monstrosity ever constructed in the history of Washington.'” (12/27/25)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/27/fbi-j-edgar-hoover-building
- Israeli regime becomes first nation to recognize Somaliland
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Israel has recognized Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an ‘independent and sovereign state,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday. ‘Together with Foreign Minister Sa’ar and the President of the Republic of Somaliland, we signed a joint and mutual declaration,’ Netanyahu posted to X. ‘This declaration is in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, signed at the initiative of President Trump,’ he said. In doing so, Israel became the first country to recognize the breakaway region. … Somalia’s Foreign Ministry denounced Israel’s ‘deliberate attack’ on its sovereignty and warned that recognizing Somaliland as an independent state would ‘undermine regional peace.'” (12/26/25)
https://www.dw.com/en/israel-becomes-first-nation-to-recognize-somaliland/a-75311342
- TX: Dad uses teen’s cell phone data to rescue her after she is forced into truck at knifepoint, police say
Source: CBS News
“Patrol deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office were called to an area home at about 4:50 p.m. on Thursday, the agency said on social media. The officers were told that the teenager, 15, had taken her dog out for a walk but had not returned. Her father then used parental controls to track her phone’s location and find it in a ‘secluded, partially wooded area’ about two miles away. The sheriff’s office said the father, who has not been identified, traveled to the site and found his daughter and her dog inside a maroon-colored pickup truck, along with a ‘partially nude’ man. The father helped the teen escape and brought her back home, where they called the sheriff’s office. Investigators determined that the male suspect had threatened the teenager with a knife. … [Giovanni Rosales] Espinoza was taken into custody without incident, the sheriff’s office said.” (12/27/25)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-dad-cell-phone-data-rescue-daughter-knifepoint-police/
- 2026 Pessimism: Put Not Your Trust in Midterms
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L. Knapp“We live in the age of the permanent campaign, and everywhere I turn I see Democrats, actual Republicans (as opposed to Trumpists), and supposed ‘independents’ looking forward to next November’s midterm congressional elections with hope, even excitement: Democrats will take the US Senate and the House, they hope, thwarting Donald Trump’s policy agenda. The odds are not with those hopes or that excitement. … Government THROUGH politics is not going to get us out of the mess we’ve been putting and keeping ourselves in WITH politics for more than a century now.” (12/27/25)
- GOP battles show a party heading deeper into fever swamps
Source: Orange County Register
by Steven Greenhut“The Republican Party that I joined in the 1980s (and later left) espoused a straightforward set of principles. It believed in free markets, limited government, peace through strength in dealing with international aggressors, and ‘traditional’ values. Sure, the last one was nebulous and the party often was hypocritical, but these core ideas were the key to its eventual resurgence. … Engaging in nostalgia is a hazard of growing older, but one need not be misty-eyed to compare that Grand Old Party to the current freak show. Sure, Democrats were pretty awful during that era (and embraced views surprisingly common in Republican circles today) and largely remain so, but the GOP was the voice of sanity. With the GOP’s dark and nasty pivot, advocates for those age-old ideals have nowhere to turn.” (12/26/25)
- The Regulator War of 1771: A Forgotten Rebellion Against Corruption
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Joe Wolverton, II“There are many events in the history of the formation of this Republic that go unnoticed, unremembered, and unheralded. Today is a chance to remedy that and remember the Regulators. As if cut from today’s headlines, patriot farmers and small ranchers in North and South Carolina led a rebellion against armed government officials trying to exercise control over western lands. History has dubbed the uprising the War of the Regulation, the final battle of which happened on May 16 in 1771. The West in this case, of course, was not Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, but the rural counties of the Carolina backcountry. Historian James Whittenburg described the events as ‘the last and greatest of the social upheavals’ that led to the War for Independence.” (12/27/25)
- US Trade Dominance Will Soon Begin to Crack
Source: Wired
by Cory Doctorow“In 2026, the leaders of America’s (former) trading partners are going to have to grapple with the political consequences of tit-for-tat tariffs. A tariff is a tax paid by consumers, and if there’s one thing the past four years have taught us, it’s that the public will not forgive a politician who presides over a period of rising prices, no matter what the cause. Luckily for the political fortunes of the world’s leaders, there is a better way to respond to tariffs. Tit-for-tat tariffs are a 19th-century tactic, and we live in a 21st-century world — a world where the most profitable lines of business of the most profitable US companies are all vulnerable to a simple legal change that will make things cheaper for billions of people, all over the world, including in the US, at the expense of the companies whose CEOs posed with Trump on the inaugural dais.” (12/26/25)
- The Miseducation of America
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis“I think we would all agree that education is one of the most important facets of any society. I’m not just talking about ‘going to school;’ there is much more to education than that. Education can even begin in the womb, and takes off from birth. Everything we are surrounded by ‘educates’ us, in one way or another — for good or ill. Not all education is ‘good.’ It should be unnecessary to say that. People can only know and act upon what they have been taught. If people don’t know what ‘freedom’ and ‘tyranny’ are — and the source of both — then they will not know how to protect the former and guard against the latter.” (12/26/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2025/12/26/the-miseducation-of-america-n2668494
- The Leverage Tinderbox: How Geopolitics and Open Interest Fueled the Largest Wipeouts Ever
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Terence Zimwara“The start of the second Trump administration in January brought optimism that the crypto economy was headed for better times. During the run-up to the November 2024 U.S. elections, Donald Trump had pledged to eliminate the Biden administration’s anti- crypto policies and end government ‘lawfare’ against crypto entrepreneurs. It was hardly a surprise that bitcoin and a wave of altcoins surged in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory and the pro- crypto Republican Party’s consolidation of power in Congress. … Yet the rally soon gave way to the darker side of crypto’s DNA: volatility. The months that followed reminded traders that parabolic gains are often followed by brutal corrections.” (12/27/25)
- Lewis and Tolkien at War
Source: Law & Liberty
by Graham McAleer“Their battlefield experiences informed a ‘literary counteroffensive’ against the grim ideologies of the twentieth century.” (12/26/25)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/lewis-and-tolkien-at-war/
- Washington May Need to Deal With a Nuclear Japan
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter“U.S. administrations even have a long history of discouraging America’s technologically capable, firmly democratic allies from crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. Washington has not been shy about pressuring (if not outright bullying) Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to foreswear building independent nuclear weapons capabilities instead relying totally on the United States for deterrence. A similar hostility has been directed toward any manifestations of interest in a nuclear deterrent by Germany and Washington’s other European allies. At the very least, it is time for U.S. leaders to review that rigid policy and carefully reconsider its various implications. Japanese who want their country to reduce or eliminate its total dependence on the United States for nuclear deterrence are not being reckless or unreasonable, given the realities of today’s regional and global security environments.” (12/27/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/washington-may-need-to-deal-with-a-nuclear-japan/
- Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Refs
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Lavery“All major American professional sports have a time of year when they capture the eyes of the nation. America’s pastime, baseball, has the ‘Fall Classic,’ the NFL dominates Thanksgiving, and the country has an entire weekend dedicated to the Super Bowl. Christmas Day is the NBA’s time to shine with action from noon to midnight (though the NFL tries to get in on the action). When Americans tune in to watch Lebron James and Kevin Durant battle it out on the court, they usually aren’t thinking about the referees, but it’s impossible to play without them.” (12/26/25)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/peace-on-earth-goodwill-towards-refs
- Different Arguments
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Opponents argue that even the best legal system sometimes makes mistakes and that a system that sometimes makes mistakes ought to limit itself to mistakes that can be corrected. Letting a wrongfully convicted defendant out of prison is easier than bringing him back from the dead. The irreversibility of the death penalty is good rhetoric but bad argument.” (12/26/25)
- “Due Process” Under Anarcho-Capitalism
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman“Libertarian advocates of minimal government, such as the late Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974), have feared that individuals in a stateless libertarian society would face corrupt or careless protection firms that used ‘risky’ rights-enforcement procedures to determine guilt or liability. Innocent people might be held responsible for offenses they did not commit, while guilty individuals avoid paying restitution to their victims. Obviously, that would be undesirable. Without a minimal monopoly state to prohibit such abuse and protect ‘procedural rights,’ how could innocent people pursue their happiness securely?” (12/26/25)
https://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2025/12/tgif-due-process-under-anarcho.html
- As 2025 slinks offstage, at least that’s something to cheer about
Source: Washington Post
by George F WillWhat Samuel Johnson said of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ can be said of 2025: No one ever wished it longer. As this year slinks offstage, remember some memorable moments: Cracker Barrel stumbled into crisis when many Americans who have too much spare time became enraged because the restaurant chain deleted from its logo an elderly man in overalls. … Elon (‘I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark gothic MAGA’) Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which never existed (actual departments are created by Congress), went out of existence after streamlining the government, which you might not have noticed. … The president decreed that the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. In 1945, Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas. Has anyone ever called it that? … New York elected a socialist mayor (‘free’ buses and child care and lots of other stuff).” (12/26/25)
- Regime Uncertainty: a Drag on the American Economy
Source: The Daily Economy
by Jason Sorens“Dealmaking politics have left businesses unsure of the rules, holding back on investments, Tariffs can be priced in. Uncertainty can’t.” (12/26/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/regime-uncertainty-a-drag-on-the-american-economy/
- Beware, beware … more than Greeks bearing gifts
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton“Quick review: the Greek forces had besieged the walled city for a very long time but failed to breach its walls. So they appeared to be abandoning the effort and sailing away. But only after constructing a great wooden horse, some kind of tribute to the gods. When they sailed away, the seemingly victorious defenders of Troy came out and decided that the huge wooden horse was a suitable victory monument and dragged it into the city. Of course, the Greeks had filled the body of the horse with a squad of elite warriors. … Today, various companies, institutions, and government agencies are playing a kind of game very similar to the Trojan Horse scam. A correspondent, Bob Malone, reminded us of this recently. It is called the ‘subscription economy,’ and it is a direct application of that evil Regressive claim that ‘in the future we will own nothing, and be happy about it.’” (12/26/25)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2025/12/26/beware-beware-more-than-greeks-bearing-gifts/
- Brussels Bets the Farm
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes“In Brussels, we have witnessed a scene that has become increasingly common: protests by European farmers marked by escalating hostility, including burning tires and clashes with police. This discontent is the cumulative reaction to a process that has dragged on for more than 25 years, and is now being pushed toward completion under conditions that are deeply damaging to European farmers. Some invoke the benefits of free markets, and, under normal circumstances, these do indeed offer the best outcomes for both producers and consumers. The problem is that between European farmers and producers from Mercosur—a trade bloc that includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay—the market can never be truly free, because farmers in each bloc operate under fundamentally different regulatory conditions.” (12/26/25)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 322
Source: Unattended Baggage
“If you thought 2025 was weird, just wait …” (12/27/25)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-322-if-you-thought-2025-was
- Free Talk Live, 12/27/25
Source: Free Talk Live
“Trump’s act of war against Venezuela – US exactly like pirates :: Trump’s executive order telling the FDA to reschedule weed to a lower level :: Have ICE deaths gone up? :: ISPs may be forced to kick users off for piracy :: Trump actually stands up to EU for trying to encroach on Free Speech :: Keeping Bitcoin in a roth IRA :: TSA giving names and photos of everyone to ICE :: the Fed to end paper checks :: 2025-12-27 Hosts: Bonnie, Angelo, Mr.Penguin.” (12/27/25)
- The Anarchist Experience, episode 560
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Everyone Else has a Holiday Hangover, so Rich E Rich Reads the News. HEADLINES: CRYPTO RIDDLE The ‘crypto curse’ killing millionaires from chopper crashes to concrete burial as FBI cop reveals chilling theories … Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims … Cocaine Dogs and ‘Safe Space Ambassadors’: Rand Paul Highlights Wild Government Waste in Annual ‘Festivus’ Report … Tennessee Judge Postpones Abrego Garcia Trial Amid Claims Of Vindictive Prosecution.” (12/27/25)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2025/12/27/the-anarchist-experience-560/
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 12/27/25
Source: The Dispatch
“Young MAGA Is Not Alright.” (12/27/25)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/young-maga-is-not-alright-ruminant/
- The Good Fight, 12/27/25
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Ivan Krastev on 2026.” (12/27/25)